


Our Weapons are Love! Justice! and Hope!

by Kelette



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 04:39:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13206162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelette/pseuds/Kelette
Summary: During Colette's journey of regeneration, she and Genis request a favor from Kratos. Kratos is hesitant about lowering himself to the children's level. Completed oneshot.





	Our Weapons are Love! Justice! and Hope!

“Kratos, will you do it?” The Chosen stood before him, hands clasped, eyes pleading.

Kratos raised his head to look across the camp. Moments before, the children had been peacefully discussing whatever it was children discussed. Now Lloyd and Genis were in a small fight, with Lloyd marching away from their spot and Genis yelling at him as Lloyd moved further and further away.

One thing Kratos had learned during their travels together was when the fight was serious and when it wasn’t. The scene before him was not an indication of a serious fight. It was an indication of children being too stubborn to compromise.

Unfortunately, Kratos had no idea what they failed to compromise on.

“Lloyd refuses to do it,” Colette said, as if that provided an explanation. 

“...I see,” Kratos answered, even though he didn’t see anything at all.

Raine was ignoring everyone else, curled up near the fire with her nose in the book. She wasn’t much of babysitter, but then, she argued that the children were hardly children, and didn’t need to babysat. The children agreed. Kratos didn’t. At his age, he supposed it was naturally that everyone appeared fleetingly young. Still, instances like this proved Kratos opinion. The children were children and now he was being dragged into their squabble.

Genis had found Colette. “What are you doing?” the young mage asked the Chosen warily. Kratos had tried to instill a careful balance of fear and respect in the children, but he had to say that he mostly failed. Colette was mostly impressed by the mercenary, rarely coming across as nervous. Beside her, Genis was outright skittish. One respected him, one feared him. In that sense, at least, Kratos had cultivated balance.

Across the camp, Lloyd glared at them. Lloyd refused to fear Kratos, and his behavior showed he didn’t want to respect him either. Instead, he did his best to compete with Kratos --a foolish endeavor. 

“I’m asking Kratos to be the third person!” Colette responded to Genis’ inquiry. “Raine’s a healer, so it shouldn’t be her, right?”

“I guess,” Genis agreed, glancing at Raine. “I still think we could convince Lloyd to do it.”

Colette shook her head, looking oddly serious. “I don’t think so. He complains every time we shout out dwarven vow number seven at the end of a fight.”

Suddenly Kratos had a sense of what this conversation might be about. Victory catchphrases. He raised his hand to his face. Such a childish concern. In a real fight… in a real battle… these children had never seen war, for goodness sake.

“What catchphrase were you asking him to say?” Kratos asked.

Colette raised a fist to her face for an ill fitting combative look. “Our weapons are love!”

“Justice!” Genis chimed in.

Kratos waited. “And then?”

“Then… the third person should say hope,” Colette said, lowering her fist. 

“Which dwarven vow is this?” Kratos asked. He had never even heard of the concept of dwarven vows before becoming this Chosen’s mercenary. Kratos thought it might be useful to find a book that listed them all one day, but until then he was stuck learning them all, one by one, as the children, mostly Lloyd, shouted them out.

“It’s not,” Colette said. “I wanted a catchphrase that Lloyd would join in on. That’s why ‘hope’ was his word.”

“Because it’s the word you chose yourself?” Kratos asked. As opposed to Love and Justice, which clearly came from the seventh dwarven vow.

Colette nodded. 

Kratos could see how the words represented the children well. Colette was the chosen one, she had no hope for a future, no need for justice. All she had was enough love for the world to sacrifice herself for it. Genis, secretly a half-elf, wished for a just world where that wouldn’t matter. 

Kratos sighed. He had no intention of agreeing. He would simply have to find a more diplomatic rejection than Lloyd.

For some reason, Genis had started grinning. “Heh, I bet Lloyd’s reaction will be hilarious.”

Colette smiled back. “He’ll be grumpy if Kratos agrees to say the catchphrase with us.”

“Will that make him change his mind?” Kratos asked.

Genis and Colette shook their heads immediately. “No way, he’s too prideful. Once you agree to do it there’s no way he ever will,” Genis explained, while Colette giggled. “But next time he might be more willing to agree.”

They were teasing Lloyd, as punishment for refusing to play along. Kratos sighed again. “All right.” He found himself agreeing. He regretted it a moment later as Genis and Colette’s faces lit up.

“Thank you!” Colette exclaimed, jumping up and down, while Genis immediately ran off to tell Lloyd and rub it in his face.

What had Kratos agreed to? He glanced around the campsite again to find Raine watching them with an amused smile on her face. She went back to her book when she saw Kratos had noticed.

They were just children, all of them. Perhaps they deserved to have some fun. For some of them, there wasn’t much time left. Kratos could swallow his pride and play along for that, couldn’t he?

**

They stood before a pile of monster corpses. 

“Our weapons are love!” Colette began.

“Justice! And...” Genis continued.

Kratos took a deep breath. He couldn’t find the same energy as the children could. “Ugh... hope.” It was a pathetic finish, but Colette and Genis seemed pleased nonetheless.

**Author's Note:**

> I was wondering how Colette and Genis got Kratos to join them in their victory catchphrase. Thanks for reading!


End file.
